The level of empathy and education as factors moderating burnout syndrome in cancer nursing

Introduction: The burnout syndrome affects people working in various professions focused on helping others. It is an important issue especially for those nurses who work with oncology patients. The author of this study focused on relationship between levels of empathy and education of oncology nurses and burnout syndrome development. Association of empathy, education of burnout reported in this study confirms the need to develop empathy and its competence in the education process, which leads to lower stress, which is associated with particularly contact with a patient suffering , dying or being in a different situation traumatic.

Material and methods: The study included 121 oncology nurses working in different departments of oncology including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, brachytherapy, transplantation, surgery and others. The study used the questionnaire method with the following research tools: Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) by C. Maslach and the empathy scale (EMP) taken from the PKIE questionnaire (Popularny kwestionariusz inteligencji emocjonalnej) by A. Jaworska and A. Matczak.

Results: The relation between level of education and the emergence of burnout syndrome. There was no correlation between the level of empathy and the level of burnout oncology nurses. In contrast, the relationship shown a low level of empathy with the lack of professional satisfaction.

Conclusions: The main factor moderating burnout syndrome among oncology nurses is their level of education. Moreover, the educational level effects the development of empathy.